Ontario councilman calls mayor ‘ignorant puppet’

When last we left the Ontario City Council, one councilman had become so upset by an attempt to thwart him, he left the meeting after telling the mayor: “You are a puppet. You are a puppet, sir. You are a puppet. You don’t have my support.”

I hadn’t witnessed anything that eye-opening in a while. I returned for more at Tuesday’s meeting.

The results were not disappointing — well, unless you believe in civility and good government — as the same guy flipped out again over the same issue and started name-calling.

Let’s dispense with the preliminaries first:

• One day after the U.S. Supreme Court loosened the restrictions on prayers at public meetings, the pastor who was supposed to give Ontario’s invocation didn’t show up.

• Speaker, and likely council candidate, Ruben Valencia said he didn’t like being dismissed at the April 15 meeting when he said Ontario had 19 sex offenders who couldn’t be located. His number was correct, he said, while adding that as of Tuesday the number was nine. Councilman Jim Bowman said dryly, “That’s pretty good progress in three weeks.”

• Speakers from the Bon View neighborhood praised the retiring Johnny Thompson, supervisor of the Dorothy Quesada Community Center. In recent years, one said, the neighborhood had made “a 360-degree turn from what it used to be.” I hope it’s more like 180 degrees or progress isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.

• A man from Woodside Senior Apartments asked if trash pickup from the complex’s eight heavy bins could be delayed from 6 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., saying, “We as seniors need all the beauty sleep we can get.”

OK, now for the main event.

Back on April 15, Mayor Paul Leon said there didn’t seem to be rules for the removal of appointees to various city commissions and that he’d like a consistent process. In the meantime, he said, he wanted a moratorium on any changes.

Alan Wapner was absent, but Bowman and Debra Dorst-Porada agreed with Leon to take this up at the next meeting.

Paul Vincent Avila, however, questioned Leon’s motives, told the audience “there will be some changes coming,” made the “puppet” comments and walked out. Police were concerned enough about the volatile Avila that they walked council members to their cars.

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It developed that Avila, who was elected in November 2012, had already appointed and removed two commissioners and was attempting to remove a third, even though appointments are typically made for four-year terms. In this case, Nicola Ricci, who’s on the Planning Commission, had received a letter from Avila telling him his last day was April 23.

At Tuesday’s meeting, City Manager Al Boling recommended an ordinance that would require requests for removal to be forwarded to the mayor with concurrence by a council majority.

“I like that. It makes it fair,” Leon said. Bowman and Dorst-Porada agreed. Wapner was away at a conference.

Nobody brought up Ricci, but his situation was alluded to several times.

“One of my concerns is that appointees could end up becoming political pawns,” Leon said. “I don’t want to see that. Especially when it comes to the Planning Commission. Our conduct with our Planning Commissions needs to be as limited as possible because of the appeals process.”

“We’re talking about providing more transparency,” Bowman said. “The public has a right to know why someone is being removed and there needs to be an open discussion.”

Dorst-Porada said it’s unfair to remove a commissioner “with no just cause or reason,” and that “a constant turnover” of appointees wastes staff’s time bringing new people up to speed.

Avila, not surprisingly, disagreed. He said he was unable to delve into the details of why he’d dismissed his appointee, whom he didn’t identify.

“Sometimes for various reasons the person is not available to me. It puts me at a disadvantage,” Avila said.

(Ricci didn’t return my phone message for his side of things, but the version I’ve heard is that Avila phoned Ricci one day and said “I’m coming over for dinner tonight”; when a startled Ricci said he and his wife already had plans, Avila said he would have to rethink Ricci’s status.)

Continuing his monologue, Avila said his appointee should have been “appreciative of being appointed” rather than objecting to his removal and that he didn’t understand how the man was still serving after Avila had removed him.

“This isn’t the place to litigate that,” Avila said, a veiled hint of legal action. He also threatened changes during the November election, when Leon, Bowman and Wapner are seeking re-election.

“This isn’t about winning the battle, it’s about winning the war. November is a date when I see winning the war. There are changes coming down that will benefit the entire city,” Avila said.

“There is a major tidal wave coming. I’ll let that go for now,” Avila said.

“I’m up against the old vanguard. I represent the new vanguard. No personnel in the city departments will be replaced” — apparently this will be a benevolent revolution — “but it’s going to change.”

Leon interrupted, saying the discussion was getting off-track and calling for the vote. He and Avila spoke over each other for a few seconds, with Avila pointing at the mayor and saying, “This idiot here —” and Leon saying he wasn’t going to let Avila “commandeer the meeting.”

“You are a puppet, you are a puppet, an ignorant puppet, a phony,” Avila said.

Leon banged his gavel and adjourned the meeting “until we can regain control of the council.” He, Bowman and Dorst-Porada left the dais. Avila kept his seat.

In other words, the opposite of the April 15 meeting, when Avila left and everyone else stayed. Good of them to shake up the pattern.

People in the audience milled around and chatted quietly for a couple of minutes until the three council members returned and resumed the meeting.

Typically, the meeting would have concluded with council member comments, but Leon canceled that, saying “I think we’ve heard enough.”

“That’s a form of oppression,” Avila, who generally talks for five or more minutes during council comment, said to Leon. “You need to be removed and you will be removed by the electorate.”

Afterward, Avila approached me to talk. (And talk, and talk, and talk.) He said he’d had to attend Planning Commission meetings himself to stay informed.

Also, he’d had “a rift” with the mayor. It began when Leon told me in my March 9 column that despite Avila’s comment that he was now a member of the church that Leon pastors, Avila had only come to worship once.

According to Avila, when he confronted Leon, the mayor claimed he’d been misquoted. (To Avila’s credit, he didn’t believe that.)

He said Leon, Bowman and Wapner all need to go because they’ve been in office too long and are beholden to campaign contributors and developers. He said of Leon: “He’s another Elmer Gantry. He’s charming, but he’s a con man. A con man.”

On Friday, Bowman told me the council has been patient but that if Avila’s “intolerable behavior” continues, “we’re going to have to talk about sanctions.” He added: “There may be stability concerns. Normal people don’t behave that way.”

The next council meeting is May 20. If the situation changes between now and then, all I can do is pray that the turn is 360 degrees.